Smile
by Yami no Tenshi chan
Summary: Typical Ryou angst. Yugi had no idea what lays behind Ryou's smile. I really liked this but it is really getting old. I had it posted on ym old account but that, um, got deleted so I am reposting it. [Oneshot. Character Death.]


Smile

_By Alice Yang_

_To smile: to show pleasure, amusement, affection, etc. by an upward curving of the mouth. _

There are no promises in a smile; no hidden "I love you"s or "I hope you're well"s. I t can be arrogant, sadistic, mocking. It can be a desperate plea for help cleverly hidden by a plastic grin. A smile can be merely a convenient mask to don when one is close to exposing some or their darkest secrets. After all, it is only a slight twitch of you mouth.

Yet as we attempt to imagine a smile, we see our best friend or perhaps our favorite cousin grinning warmly for a camera. We never picture a white-haired teenager forming his lips into a shy curve to shield to world away from himself- or rather himself away from the world. To hide away the dark memories of fear, beatings, rape, and self mutilation. We never see that. Surely, smiling and that sort of pain is nonassociatable, we like to think.

Smiling is not to be trusted. There are too many meanings for it that anyone could twist ever so slightly to create a completely new definition. It you misread that definition by even a millimeter, as Yugi misread Ryou's, there can be dangerous, deadly consequences.

After the two had said their farewells, Yugi grinning a big grin that meant absolutely nothing, Ryou had smiled. However, that day, Ryou's smile had a tint of unfamiliar ness in it. It was his cry for help, alerting Yugi of what could, _will_, happen.

Surely, it must had sublimely registered in the back of Yugi's mind that there was something different, wrong, about Ryou's smile but not enough for the small boy to actually _do_ anything. That was too bad.

Smiling is a waste of time, was Ryou's thought as he fumbled in a drawer for a razor blade. Why he had spent his life smiling numb and effortlessly, he didn't know. Well, all that was over now. It didn't matter anymore. Ryou's fingers came to a cold, metallic surface which they closed around and grasped. Ryou held his suicide weapon up to his eyes and ran his index finger across it, drawing blood, to get a small taste- just a miniscule sample- of what suicide must feel like.

Ryou's gaze drifted up from the illuminated blade to his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. Instead of seeing the soft, delicate beauty that seemed so accessible to everyone around him, an ugly monster met his eye. And his hair- the beautiful, soft, white locks that framed his face and hugged his shoulders- that was the teasing target of so many of his classmates. _Ryou couldn't stand that hair. _Blind to what he was doing, Ryou set the blade near the roots of his snowy locks and hacked wildly. He did it again. And again…until he could no longer feel the hot humiliation of not being like everyone else. Ryou didn't notice the white locks drifting down, like snow, nor did he feel himself fall with them. All he knew was that he was getting rid of all that damn _hair_. With each lock that fell from his head, Ryou could hear his classmates' jeering laugher slowly die…fade into the distance…until there was nothing but the eerie but all too familiar silence of being alone and the sound of his own beating heart.

But no. Ryou couldn't stand even that sound. Soon, the beating seemed to grow louder…and louder…echoing through Ryou's veins, rattling his frail body with a steady, growing rhythm. No…he had to stop it…

Taking his razor, Ryou slashed blindly at his wrists, his neck, his chest…anywhere where the pulsing had become unbearable. Blood seeped out of Ryou's wounds and stained the fallen, snowy locks on the ground with its glory. It was everywhere. Ryou brought some to his lips and tasted it. He tasted both the salvation of Heaven and the damnation of hell. The rich, salty liquid filled Ryou's mouth with both life and death. Funny, blood was what supplied life to living things yet it was associated with death- the very opposite of life. Of course, many people grouped certain things with their opposites. A smile for instance.

XXXXX

Eventually, they found Ryou's body when Yugi's constant knocking had not received a response. The had wheeled him out, shaking their heads at the pure _waste_. To them, the boy had had everything but chose to throw it all away. He had been a waste a flesh, they thought (though feeling guilty to think such things about one so unfortunate), not even strong enough to survive the trials of adolescence.

They had also found a card for a game of some sort with Ryou's body. Duel monsters, they concluded after further inspection. This, they handed to the small, spiky-haired boy that stood just out the door, weeping for the loss of a good friend.

Yugi stared at the card. Why? _Why? WHY?_ Why hadn't Ryou _told _someone? No…this was his own fault…how had he been dumb enough not to notice that flicker of insecurity in his friend's face? How had he been so _stupid?_

The grinning clown on the card seemed to mock Yugi. Hagaii the Double Faced Clown, Yugi recognized. When the card was just sitting on the field, it wore a pleasant-looking smiling mask that made it seem quite docile until it attacked. Then its true colors were revealed- a sobbing, mourning face that self destructed, destroying not only itself but its opponent.

Below the monster's grinning photo was a scrawled note, barely legible. Yugi squinted to make out a short message, Ryou's last earthly words:

_My last smile._

XXXXX

I had this on my old account but my account, duh, was deleted. –sigh- It is now reposted am I am hoping that it will get as many, if not more, than the reviews it received last time.

Oh, I love anyone who even reads this though. It was a while since I wrote it and is really quite old.

I'm going to post a Ryou and Bakura story up soon…and the Silent Game will be posted as soon as I get it back form my friend. (I have a plot too!) If you want ot keep track of my progress, you can go to my livejournal account which is at: http/xhoshi-tenshix. 


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